Zoe Beaty is 26 and counting. Counting the days until payday (four) and the charges on her overdraft (£40). She's in her mid-twenties and in the midst of a phase where you're not sure if it's ok to eat chicken nuggets in bed at 2am on a Tuesday or if you should really be getting your shit together. This is her weekly column for everyone else who is also 20something and counting…
All the tell tale signs of a night out were there: an awful programme on the tele that everyone was too hungover to change, five mates crushed on the sofa barely moving, more outside trying to smoke their way through the wine-pain - and a sole, sorry-looking piece of kebab meat on the rug, already getting a bit crusty round the edges and threatening to induce another round of hangover sicks if you look at it too long. On the face of it, it looked like an entirely normal morning after. Until, it wasn't.
I looked up from the sofa to see a sickening circus of adulthood. In one corner, two mates were discussing their savings. 'I've got about £30,000 now,' one mused, making me cough a little bit of my Ringtons tea up. Another walked in with some 'healthy' treats from the shop, and someone else asked for a cup of peppermint tea. I knew things had seriously upskittled when we ate our bacon with avocado on wholemeal bread. Wholemeal.
Zoe Beaty is 26 & Counting
There was a time when all that concerned us after a night out was who had pulled, who sicked in the taxi and who was least likely to be over the limit to drive us to the carvery immediately. All we did on a Sunday was eat crap and laugh about the night before, half dressed and consumed by a sense of impending doom about exactly what had happened in the black spots of the the previous evening.
Now we were talking career progression, buying houses and cleansing herbal teas. For god's sake, someone got the hoover out.
I couldn't help but feel a little sad that this might be the new norm - that we'd probably not ever carry on drinking until 10am and then spend the rest of the day consuming burgers and power ballads. But then my friend almost vommed on herself and someone else did a doom cry for no reason and I realised that, avocado or not, some things will never change. And for that, and for my hapless, hanging friends, I couldn't be more grateful.